


nothing but the pearls (extended)

by starraya



Category: Phantom Thread (2017)
Genre: F/F, bc certain people kept asking for more lesbian smut, see u in hell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:40:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25094725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starraya/pseuds/starraya
Summary: A thrill always runs down Cyril’s spine when she sees a beautiful woman in one of her brother’s dresses, but the thrill is especially delicious when she’s also seen the woman undressed.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	nothing but the pearls (extended)

On a wintry evening, Cyril and Henrietta lie side by side on the bed. Cyril turns her head to look at Henrietta, who is panting heavily and still catching her breath. Henrietta’s skin is flushed and glistening with sweat. Cyril smiles, pleased. She sits up and reaches for her bag on the side. She takes out her cigarettes.

“Want one?” She says to Henrietta.

Cyril always smokes afterwards and she always asks Henrietta. Most of the time Henrietta says yes, but this time she says no. Whilst Cyril, as a lover, has the graciousness of a brilliant hostess, Henrietta thinks, she also has the reserve of one.

“One clue,” Henrietta begs Cyril. “Just give me one clue.”

Cyril laughs. “You know I can’t.”

“Please,” Henrietta says.

“Reynolds would kill me,” Cyril says, matter of fact. She is sitting on the edge of the bed, with her back to Henrietta. Soon, she will rise, neaten her hair, her make-up, her clothes, and leave before the clock can reach midnight. Henrietta seizes what little time they have left. She wraps her arms around Cyril, pulls her back to her, nuzzles her nose into her neck.

“It could be our little secret,” she whispers, voice ticking the fine hairs on Cyril’s neck.

Cyril does not relent. “You will see the dress tomorrow,” she says.

Henrietta sighs. She swipes the cigarette from Cyril’s fingers, returns to the other side of the bed and takes a long drag. Sheets pulled up to her naked chest, she watches a dressed Cyril pat down her hair in the mirror. Slide loose strands behind her ears.

Cyril had fucked her once in front of that mirror. Henrietta remembers the silky feel of Cyril’s blouse pressed against her back as Cyril had stood behind her, remembers the feeling of Cyril’s smile against her skin and the relentless rhythm of Cyril’s fingers.

-

Joanna is lovely, but Cyril knows her time has come. When Cyril comes down for breakfast and sees how Reynolds ignores Joanna, she feels pity for the girl. But Cyril knows the time has come and she knows, ultimately, it is she who will have to bid Joanna goodbye.

For now, she mentally puts the matter to one side. She must finish breakfast and go downstairs to greet Henrietta, who is going to try on the dress for the first time. A thrill always runs down Cyril’s spine when she sees a beautiful woman in one of her brother’s dresses, but the thrill is especially delicious when she’s also seen the woman undressed.

Last night, after she returned from Henrietta’s, Cyril unlocked the room where Henrietta’s dress waited. Cyril didn’t dare turn on the light, afraid it would somehow spoil the dress, bleach the colour, even though she knew the fear was irrational. So, in the dark, she stroked the velvet sleeves of the dress. Reynolds lay ignorantly asleep in his room.

*

When Cyril and Reynolds were young, no longer children, but not yet adults, he had used her as a model a couple of times. He needed a template on which to project his vision, he said. Cyril didn’t mind assisting. When he stepped back to scrutinize the bodice he had pinned upon her, he shook his head.

“It’s useless,” he huffed. “You’re not right.”

The bodice didn’t fit at the front as snugly as it should have. Cyril agreed, but she was frustrated by the way Reynolds was always so quick to give up, to declare failure. She needed to build his resilience.

“Your job is to make women right,” she snapped. “If you want to design professionally you will have to dress all shapes of women.”

“But a model is meant to be right,” he replied.

And he’s been searching for the right one, the right woman ever since. Johanna is the latest in a long list of unsuccessful attempts.

At dinner, Cyril asks her brother what he would like to do about Johanna. But, as expected, he doesn’t have an answer. He is succumbing to one of his melancholy moods. When he starts talking about mother, she suggests he go to the country for respite. 

_Look after him_ , her mother had asked Cyril on her death bed. _Even when he’s an old man, he will need you to look after him._ Somehow, even then, her mother knew Cyril would never marry. She would never leave Reynolds and set up house for another man. She would remain a spinster, always at her brother’s side.

It was a choice Cyril made out of reason as well as out of love. She would nurture her brother’s talent and help him achieve his potential. Because, with success, came money. With money, came independence. If she supported Reynolds, she would never have to marry a man out of financial need. The very idea of marrying a man, for whatever reason, turned her stomach.

*

“When I first met you, do you know what I thought. I though you are Reynolds’ wife and I am his mistress," Johanna tells Cyril the next day. “And I resented you for it. But now I’m not sure I was ever even a mistress to Reynolds.”

Johanna is packing her suitcase. Cyril has given her a firm, but gentle dismissal and offered the October dress as a leaving present.

“How many women have there been before me?” Johanna asks Cyril as she closes the latch on her suitcase.

“You cannot expect a man to have only one lover in his lifetime,” Cyril replies.

Johanna picks up her suitcase. “How many times has he ran away then and left you to tidy up the mess he’s made?”

Cyril looks at the October dress, hanging up on the wardrobe. “If you send me your next address, I will have the dress delivered to you,” she says. “The colour complements your eyes well. And the fabric is very warm. It is ideal for the current weather.”

Johanna walks towards the door, but she pauses in front of Cyril. She is taller than her and she leans down. She kisses Cyril briefly on the lips. Feels her tense out of shock.

“It’s a pity,” Johanna says. “That you feel more for me that he ever did.”

Cyril inhales deeply. Her voice is cold and clipped. “Please leave,” she says. Cyril hears the click of Johanna’s heels against the marble stairs, then the sound of the front door opening and closing, then nothing. Cyril leaves the room and goes to find a box for the October dress. It is the colour of Autumn leaves, just before they fall. She thinks about last night. Standing on the balcony, watching Henrietta walk down the stairs in her new dress, arm in arm with her husband. Cyril tapped her fingers on the balcony rail, made up her mind and turned.

It is time to break things off, delicately, with Henrietta.

*

Reynolds finds another lover before Cyril does. Her name is Alma. She smells of sherry and lemon juice. Cyril takes the measurement book, sits in the corner of the attic and etches Alma’s measurements into a fresh page. Even before Reynolds relays all of the numbers to her, Cyril already knows it – she has studied and recorded the measurements of so many half-dressed women that she can approximate by sight alone – Alma has the ideal shape.

But she is naïve, like the rest of Reynolds’ girls. Cyril doubts she will last long.

*

“Actually,” Nigel says to Cyril one night, after dining with Cyril, Reynolds and Alma, “I think Alma’s the one.”

Cyril scoffs. “You said that about the last girl.”

“Well, I’m sure with this girl.”

A love-sick Alma and Reynolds dashed off together after dinner. Nigel is walking Cyril home. They are arm in arm. Nigel is one of several men she has met through her brother’s work that has asked her out. It was decades ago, but they still laugh about it. To give Nigel credit, it was one of the more pleasant experiences Cyril’s had with the opposite sex. Nigel hadn’t mistaken her professional geniality for something else.

But you like me, one man had said once. _You were flirting with me._

_Oh, come on_ , another had said, _it’s not like you’ve got many chances left._

Some men were nicer.

_You’re an extremely attractive woman, Cyril. Do you know that?_

But they always said it like they expected a prize for the compliment.

Nigel, however, knew Cyril did not like him. He didn’t like her, in that way, either. But he promised he would always be kind to her, he would give her independence. His offer was tempting. She was 21, with no family but Reynolds and they were hardly making ends met with her needlework. Reynolds sketched and stitched night and day, but he had only sold one dress. His designs were too modern, too forward-thinking. It wasn’t until the dropped waistlines, pleated skirts and beads of the 1920s that business truly began. That the House of Woodcock began.

But, ultimately, Cyril rejected Nigel's marriage proposal. The very next day Nigel met Walter. The men have been together for 40 years.

“How is Walter? Has he recovered from his sickness?” Cyril asks Nigel as they turn a street corner.

“Yes, yes. He's Good,” Nigel replies. “How is Henrietta?”

Cyril doesn't answer, but Nigel can read her face. His friend’s affairs never do last long. "Oh Cyril Woodcock and her trail of a hundred broken hearts,” he exclaims, pressing his hand to his chest to mark out one of the hearts.

Cyril swats him playfully with her hand, then laughs some more.

-

For the photoshoot, Reynolds puts Alma in the December dress. Cyril arrives halfway through – after a long phone call to a client who was . . . particularly specific and extremely detailed about her order – and slips into the room without anyone noticing. She expects to see the photographer that she discussed the magazine article with two weeks ago.

Instead, she sees the back of a woman. Sees the long, loose lines of an oversized blazer and trousers. Forest-green. 

The photographer cajoles her brother into posing opposite Alma. She wants Reynolds to sit on the floor and gaze up adoringly at Alma. He does. Then he storms off, likely in search of the quietude of an empty room and a book. When Alma leaves to get dressed, it is Cyril who must wrap the afternoon up.

She walks up to the photographer. “Where is Charles?”

“He’s ill,” the photographer says. “But I can assure you I’m every bit as experienced as he.”

“I’ll wait for the photos to assure me of that.”

“You’re Cyril, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

Around them, people are packing the equipment up. Someone turns off the bright, white lights and, for a moment, the room is plunged in darkness.

“Good work always makes me feel thirsty,” the photographer says.

Another person turns on the overhead light and even though neither of them have moved, the flood of light makes it feel as if they are stood closer.

“I can get order you some refreshment if you like,” Cyril tells the woman. “A cup of tea, perhaps?”

“Thank you, but I’ve just returned to London and I’m craving this little café in Bloomsbury. They serve the most fabulous macaroons. Will you join me?”

“I’m afraid I have work to do.”

“So do I,” the photograph confesses in a low, conspiratorial tone.

“I’ll get you some tea,” Cyril replies.

Later that day, when her brother proclaims that he will _not,_ under any circumstances, work with that lady photographer again, Cyril isn’t surprised but she still feels a twinge of disappointment. She had wanted to pull the tip of the woman’s tie from her waistband and take a closer look at the pattern.


End file.
